


What We Are

by Karis_Artemisia_Judith



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Flower Crowns, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 12:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4137384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karis_Artemisia_Judith/pseuds/Karis_Artemisia_Judith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna wanted Kristoff to be with her. And she wanted him to be happy, And she found herself wondering if it was impossible to have both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Are

Kristoff rolled his eyes upward when Anna dropped the slightly prickly, fragrant circlet onto his head, but he didn’t object. He just leaned forward to make room for her to sit behind him, perched on the log that he’d been using as a backrest.

“What’s this for?”

“Mm.” Anna shrugged, and reached out to comb her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. It was still long, brushing the collar of his tunic, and still shaggy and uneven, even though instead of cutting it himself (with a knife) he’d let Anna cut it with scissors. She had  _tried_  to make it even, but Kristoff hadn’t seemed able to hold still, especially when she’d snipped ( _very carefully_ ) near his ear. His neck and shoulders had been so tense that she’d finally put the scissors down, before he could pull his head down into his shirt like a turtle.

 

Kristoff wasn’t tense now, though. His shoulders were loose and relaxed as he settled back against her knees, and as she dug her hand deeper into his thick hair, her nails lightly scratching his scalp, a peaceful, rumbling hum came from his throat. It made Anna laugh and she leaned over to press her cheek to the top of his head for a moment before sitting back up. She ran her fingers through the hair that fell across his forehead, stroked down the sides of his face, felt the faint prickle of stubble against her fingertips as she traced the strong line of his jaw. She hadn’t seen him look this relaxed in weeks. He was never this relaxed in the castle—it was only when they came up into the mountains that the tension in his back eased completely like this.

There were always people in the castle now, and Anna loved it. She loved having friends—she had made friends with ladies from the handful of noble families, and the wives and daughters of important merchants, with all the new members of staff, the people she met when she went wandering through the market. Elsa let her invite them all to the castle for tea, for dinner, for lawn games in the garden (games were  _so_  much better when there were other players), although they had come to an agreement that there would be three days out of every week with no guests. The queen wanted some time alone with her sister, which Anna did not mind  _at all_ , but she also thought that Elsa seemed to get tired and withdrawn after being around people for more than a few hours, instead of being full of energy the way Anna always felt. At first Anna just thought she was nervous and shy, but now she wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, Anna had figured out that events needed to end after about three hours, and Elsa seemed happy.

Kristoff, though, was harder. Anna was never sure if he was happy. Well, she was sure that he was happy  _right now_ , but he was always happy outdoors, on the mountain. It was in the town and the castle that she couldn’t tell. Sometimes he seemed happy—when they sat together in the library after dinner, playing a game while Elsa sorted through documents, or just sitting while she told him about her day, he seemed happy. Usually. Almost always. When they went walking together and she looped her arm through his and clasped his hand, he seemed happy then, too. Except that sometimes she’d look up to tell him something or draw his attention to some new, fascinating thing, and she’d see him looking around with a frown, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. He seemed to do that a lot. He even did it when she coaxed him into joining her for tea with some of her new friends. She’d thought at first that he hated tea, but he drank it readily enough at other times. He never said no when she invited him, and if he saw her looking at him then he’d smile at her, a warm smile that made her insides melt like butter. But even when he was smiling at her, even when they were alone and he was hugging her close for a moment, there was that tension riding in his shoulders. And Anna didn’t know what to do about it.

Their intimacy had grown unevenly—maybe that was inevitable, after Anna had insisted that Kristoff have a room in the family wing, near her own. She hadn’t really thought it through, hadn’t considered the question of  _propriety_  (a word she had come to dread). Her only thought had been that she didn’t want Kristoff to be all alone in the big, empty guest wing, far away from everyone. It hadn’t been used in years, and Anna thought it was a dark, depressing, lonely place that badly needed to be redecorated. Of course Kristoff would be happier in the family wing. It was homier, and she wanted the castle to be his home. That was that.

But it became clear in the first week that, regardless of propriety, nothing would keep Kristoff from coming to her if he heard her cry out during the night. She hadn’t woken up screaming the first night, or the second, but the third night she’d woken up with her throat raw, her face wet with tears, and Kristoff’s broad hands clasping her shoulders. That was how he’d happened to see her in nothing but her nightdress before they’d kissed more than a few times, although at first he didn’t even seem to notice. When he’d been sure that she was all right, when her tears had stopped, he’d looked around and realized just where he was, and what she was wearing.

Her nightdress covered her from neck to ankles, but it was only one thin layer of fine cotton, not the many layers of shift and petticoats and corset and shirt and dress she usually wore. During the day the heat of his hand on her waist had to bleed through at least four layers of fabric. And during the day  _he_  was usually wearing a good bit more as well. Now she knew that he slept in just a loose pair of trousers with a drawstring at the waist, instead of the tailored pajamas and quilted dressing gown she remembered her father wearing. She’d vaguely assumed all men dressed the same for bed. Apparently not.

Kristoff had let go of her carefully and blushed so darkly that she could see it even in the moonlight, stammering as he backed out of the room. In the morning her kiss on his cheek made him blush again, as if he hadn’t held her on his lap, her face pressed into his neck.

But the next time she’d screamed in the darkness he’d been there to wake her.

He was comfortable cradling her to his chest and kissing tears away from her face in the darkness long before he could put an arm around her waist during the day without blushing. He didn’t think twice about holding her close for as long as it took for her to stop crying, but he hesitated to hold her hand for more than a moment in public. In the dark he would murmur softly into her hair, telling her that he loved her, that he would always love her, that she was precious and cherished and  _loved_ , so loved. Then during the day he stammered endlessly before he managed to tell her she looked pretty. Anna was torn between finding the dichotomy adorable and hair-tearingly frustrating, but she would deal with it gladly if he would only stop looking so stiff and stressed whenever they had guests at dinner. If he would smile without her prompting during a ball. If he could walk through the castle without hunching his shoulders as if he wanted to shrink and disappear.

She just wanted him to be with her. And she just wanted him to be happy, And she found herself wondering if it was impossible to have both.

Anna slid her hand down over his shoulder to rest over his heart, and he lifted his to cover her fingers with his palm, turning his head to kiss the hollow of her elbow. “Kristoff?”

“Hm?”

“Are you…are you happy?”

He leaned his head back to look at her, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Of course. Why?”

“I don’t mean right now, I mean—I mean all the time.”

“Anna, no one is happy  _all_  the time.”

She bit her lip. “So…so you aren’t happy.”

“I didn’t say that.” He twisted so that he could see her better, worry darkening his eyes. Under her hand she felt the tension that troubled her so much stiffening his shoulders. “Anna, I'm…I’m happy a lot of the time. More than I can remember ever being before.” His fingers curled around hers, tightening for a moment and then letting go. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…” She rubbed her palm against his shirt and leaned her forehead down to rest on his shoulder. “Kristoff, do you hate the castle?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Do you hate it? I mean, do you hate living there? With me?”

“No, I don’t hate the castle.” She felt his fingertips brush through her bangs, a feather light touch against her temple. “I could never hate being where you are.”

“Then why are you so tense? You’re tense all the time, except for when we’re up here by ourselves and I don't…I don’t know how to make it better. I just…You just…I don’t always know if you’re happy there.”

“Anna…I’m not unhappy. I—” He shrugged a little, jostling her, then turned his head to kiss the tip of her ear, since it was the part of her most readily available. “It’s different,” he said softly. “It's…Okay, it can be a little hard, sometimes. Up here is easy, because I know who I am. I know what I can do, what to expect. Down there…”

“Down there it’s hard.”

“A little. There are a lot of new rules. New things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

“Like you, Anna.”

“What?” Her head jerked up and she stared at him. “I worry you? Why do I worry you?”

“No, I don't—I don’t mean like that, I just… _You_  don’t worry me—it’s that I worry  _about_  you.” He reached up to tug one of her braids lightly. “Are  _you_  happy?”

“Of course I’m happy! I'm  _so_  happy—I have Elsa, and you, and the gates are open so I have all these new friends, I…I am happy.” Anna bit her lip. “Of course I am. Why would you worry about me?”

“Anna…” He paused, then he lifted her hand from his chest and held it up, smoothing it out on one of his broad palms with the fingers of his other hand. A calloused fingertip stroked over her knuckles and up to her nails. They were bitten short, and the skin around them was red and raw from being nibbled endlessly. “I worry about this,” he said softly.

“Oh, that's…” She curled her hand up into a fist. It looked very small in his palm. “I bite my nails. It’s a bad habit. But why does that worry you?”

“Anna, look—” He turned her fist over. “Look, you don’t just bite your nails. You bite your fingers, and you pick at the skin around your nails—I’ve seen you do it. I don’t think you even notice that you’re doing it, sometimes.”

“I…” Anna blinked. “I don’t do it much. Do I?”

“You do it when you’re nervous. Or stressed. Do your fingers ever bleed?”

“Well…just sometimes. Not very often.” Anna tried to pull her hand away, meaning to tuck it behind her back, but Kristoff caught her wrist.

“Anna, don’t. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, I just—” He cradles her hand in both of his, then ducked his head to kiss her fingertips. After a long moment he went on. “I know you love people, and you love meeting them, but it’s a lot, after being alone for so long.” He smiled wryly up at her. “I kind of know that from experience. It’s all new to me too, but…it doesn’t worry me so much, because I don’t need all those people to like me. If you like me, that’s enough. Well,” he corrected himself hastily, “I guess it’s important that Elsa likes me, because she’s your family, and I worry about Kai and Gerda liking me, because they kind of run the whole castle, if they didn’t like me it would be…it would be really awkward. They’re the ones who help me out when I don’t know how to put on a cravat or I can’t remember which fork to use. But…” he shrugged. “Other than them, I don’t need to worry about everyone else. But you do. I can see how much you worry about them liking you, Anna.”

“Of course I want people to like me,” she spluttered. “I want everyone to like me! And…I….” she trailed off. “I just…I never thought about it being stressful. It's…It's  _fun_. Meeting people is fun.”

“For you, it is,” Kristoff said. “And climbing up a cliff is fun, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary. Or dangerous. And

Anna…those people can be dangerous.”

“Kristoff, seriously. They’re just—”

“All people can be dangerous, Anna.” His voice was serious, and his hand closed warmly around hers. “I don’t want you to get hurt again. I want to keep you safe. Up here, I know how to do that. But down there…I don’t.”

“Oh.” She hesitated. “How…how did you notice?”

 "Notice what?“

"That I was scared? That I was nervous?”

He shrugged. “I just…could see it. How did you notice that I’m tense half the time? I thought I was covering it really well.”

“I thought I was too,” Anna said softly. “Kristoff, do you think anyone else noticed? That anyone else could see?”

“I don’t know, except…well, I don’t know how Elsa could have missed it, but I’m pretty sure she would be worrying about you in any case. I think Gerda might—”

“Oh no. Oh no, no no no…”

“Anna—” Kristoff reached up to touch her cheek, turning her head to look at him.

Anna leaned down to kiss him, tense and desperate for comfort, and his hand on her cheek slid into her hair, cupping her head. When she pulled back for air she hid her face against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and chest from behind as tightly as she could.

“It’s so important that no one else knows,” she whispered. “People need to think that I’m okay. They can’t remember me freezing. They can’t be reminded that Elsa’s power can be dangerous. In front of other people I have to always be okay, and Elsa’s power has to be fun and exciting and beautiful, and it is, of course it is, especially now, but…I can’t ever be afraid, Kristoff. I can’t be scared of getting too cold. I can’t be tired, or frustrated, I can’t even be bored, because I have to be the princess and I have to be so strong all the time, and no one understands, and I…”

He twisted around, reaching up for her, and Anna let him pull her down into his lap. Her head tucked into his shoulder and one big hand smoothed over her hair, curving warm against the nape of her neck.

“I’ve got you, Anna,” he said softly. “You don’t have to be strong with me. I’ve got you.”

She relaxed against him, her face pressed into her shirt. “Hey,” she mumbled, voice muffled. “Hey, I wanted to talk about you.” She poked him gently before wrapping her arms around his broad torso. “I wanted to make sure  _you_  were okay, and you made it all about me. You can’t think about just me, what about…” she had to pause to sniff as quietly as she could, and his hold on her tightened a little. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

Anna lifted her head to glare damply at him. “I don’t want you to…to feel like you have to put up with everything at the castle. I don’t want you to spend all your time being miserable and alone because of  _me_. I want…I want you to be  _happy_.”

“Anna—” He shifted, sitting upright and bringing his hands to her shoulders. “Anna, no one is forcing me to stay, or making me put up with anything, and I am not miserable. Freezing in a cave because I got stuck in a snowstorm with no supplies is miserable. Trying to find work when there’s no demand for ice is miserable. Walking away from you and thinking I’d never see you again, that…that was miserable. And I don’t plan to do it ever again.” His palms rose to cradle her jaw gently. “Anna, I promise that if I wanted to go, I would go. But I  _don’t_.” Kristoff shrugged a little, then leaned in to kiss her forehead. “I don’t even know what we are, Anna,” he murmured. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to…to court you, or want you, or love you, or call you by your given name—”

She clutched at his shirt. “Yes,” she said hastily, “ _yes_ , you…you're…” She bit her lip. What was he to her? A strong arm that drew her out of nightmares, a teasing voice that made her laugh, a broad hand that cradled her cheek so gently, brown eyes that with one look made her chest fill with a warmth so great that any fear of being frozen again melted away. “Please,” she whispered. “Please love me.”

He lifted her face, kissing her. “I do. I will always.”

“Is it…is that enough? For us to be okay?”

“It’s enough for me.”

“Then I think…” She took a shaky breath, felt her shoulders relaxing as she scrubbed a hand across her eyes, and smiled up at him. “I think if love can thaw a whole country, it’s enough for us to be together. We can figure out the rest as we go.” She laid her palm on his cheek. “You don’t always have to be strong either, you know. We can figure this out together. I’ve got you, too.”

He bent to kiss her, and the flower crown slid to a rakish angle on his blond hair. Anna leaned back to look at him. “This is what you are,” she murmured, stroking the tousled, too-long fringe back from his face. “My valiant reindeer king.”

Kristoff started to make a face, but Anna kissed him deeply instead. 


End file.
